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hex11
Senior Member

Posts: 1982
Registered: 09-09

It doesn't have to be complicated.

# play some background muzak
$ mplayer -loop 0 e1m1.mp3 &
# play some lame dialog
$ mplayer blahblah.mp3 &
# okay, map's over
$ kill %1

Anyway, the point is everyone already has some kind of audio player on their machine. Why go through the trouble of writing code when you can instead invoke an external player? For sound fx, there's latency issues, but not background music that just loops over and over. The only challenge is to auto-detect what audio player they have (at install time), but better also give them an option to choose their own. And then you just have some basic job control / signal handling to deal with.

I'm assuming of course that everyone has some kind of audio server running (Esound daemon, or whatever) to handle multiplexing and not have one process hog the audio device. But I'd say that's a fairly safe assumption since even OpenBSD has one now (aucat) and it's not exactly the king of desktop OS...

11-17-12 22:18 #

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Graf Zahl
Why don't I have a custom title by now?!

Posts: 7451
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hex11 said:

It doesn't have to be complicated.

No, but it also doesn't have to be messy.

hex11 said:

I'm assuming of course that everyone has some kind of audio server running (Esound daemon, or whatever)

As someone in a movie once very eloquently stated, assumption is the mother of all fuckups.

Especially on Windows there is normally NOT such a server running and even if it did, I wouldn't trust it. External solutions always come with their own set of problems.

For example, if you let ZDoom run with Timidity configured to handle its own sound output you won't be able to change the music volume. For that you have to send the sound data back to the internal sound engine for mixing into its own sound stream.

It's the overreliance on things that are very linux-y that make the current OAL implementation fail. The particular problem is that all music streaming code is so tightly hooked into GStreamer that it's impossible to make it work without that thing.

11-17-12 22:54 #

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hex11
Senior Member

Posts: 1982
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Well if nothing else, this would be a way to get ZDoom working on many Unix-like platforms. And these audio servers have methods to control the volume of a playing stream, it's just basic functionality of such a server. Anyway you wouldn't have to worry about the details as the package maintainers for each OS would be dealing with that. Managing dependencies is what they do all the time, and they can customize scripts, config files, makefiles, etc. for that environment.

Of course there's nothing stopping you from doing the same with OpenAL (or whatever library). You could very well continue to use FMOD on Windows, but on Unixy OS you just let the package manager install OpenAL and its dependencies. That's the way it works for everything else on those systems. The only thing that you would need to do is write some basic abstraction layer to handle both audio libraries. And then just make it a build option which library to use. Does that sound like too much trouble or something?

11-18-12 00:46 #

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Gez
Why don't I have a custom title by now?!

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hex11 said:
Does that sound like too much trouble or something?

Pretty much.

11-18-12 00:57 #

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Ladna
Junior Member

Posts: 233
Registered: 04-10

Blzut3 said:

You are allowed to fork right? :P More importantly, nothing would stop you from making an alternative to libpoison.so using the same ABI.

Sure, but that's extra work and you lose name recognition (look at "Iceweasel"...). Plus, from the looks of it, the ZDoom team says that even switching to a different sound library is too much trouble. If it's too much trouble for you guys, why do you put forth this solution to linking with closed binaries, because that's a process that's ostensibly more work, especially if the Apache devs are working against you (and they probably would be). You guys say: "why should ZDoom spend valuable development time reimplementing features formerly provided by proprietary codebases/libraries just to appease open source extremists?". But I can respond: "why should 'FreeApache' devs spend valuable development time reimplementing a tethering library just to appease greedy/suspect developers?"

Blzut3 said:

While I see your point, I don't exactly see the point of holding a project back simply because the free alternatives suck (SDL_mixer). More importantly though if someone is working on a build engine port, why should they not be allowed to use ZDoom's resource system? Certainly it isn't their fault build is not GPL. (Yes that's debatable, but I don't want to think of another example at the moment.)

It sort of sounds like you agree with me here in some respects: developers should be able to use as much code from other sources as possible. The question is how we achieve that. I believe, and will argue strongly, that the GPL is the best way we can ensure the highest level of code access for developers. It essentially forces openness; it's not optional.

Let's use some short hypotheticals. If BUILD were GPL, FMOD were GPL, and Heretic/Hexen were GPL, none of these problems would exist. Now you can say, "OK, but that just shows the GPL's fragility. FMOD isn't GPL compatible, so the whole situation falls apart." You'd be absolutely right about that. But let's assume each project is BSD. Now if one of the game projects is closed source, you can't use it (because you don't have the code). Suddenly ZDoom loses a ton of features.

Furthermore, it's also not possible for the GPL hypothetical to ever go wrong. Once a codebase is GPL that's that (pretty much anyway). BSD provides no such guarantees, and specifically so; BSD advocates view the fact that their licenses allows closed source as a feature. In the BSD hypothetical, there is nothing at all that prevents those game projects from closing their source and screwing downstream devs, forcing them to rely on older codebases and implement new features in tandem with the new, closed version or risk obsolescence.

BSD solves none of the issues. Closed source and GPL incompatible projects are the problems.

Blzut3 said:

Another example of the GPL being "asinine:" Why can't nVidia use DMA-buf? It's merely an issue of trying to force nVidia to open source their video driver (which, whether you think they should or not doesn't particularly matter since they may have code they can't share for whatever reason). The result is we can't have optimus graphics with the binary blob due to an idealist position.

Sure, the GPL is definitely designed to try and force people to open source their code. The problem isn't the license, the problem is the closed-source binary blob NVIDIA puts on our systems. There's nothing good about closed source, the only reason anyone's upset about this is that NVIDIA makes super fast video cards and users want that. No one is like, "closed source is so awesome, I can't believe I don't run more of it". The whole situation would be way better if NVIDIA's drivers were just open source.

Blzut3 said:

I'm all for promoting open source, but it needs to provide a better experience for the end user. Otherwise you're only making yourselves look bad.

Open source is arguably the best thing ever to happen in software. Other than TRON, it's responsible for the most popular OS on the planet. It's responsible for the most popular internet software on the planet, including browsers, web servers, FTP servers, SSH/SFTP servers, etc. FOSS advocacy is the reason we can watch videos and listen to music on our computers without paying royalties. This stuff is just so much more important than "this library is easier to use".

Graf Zahl said:

The base blzut pointed out is a classic case of open source extremists trying to force their view upon others with no regards to the consequences.

If you want open source you have to compromise eventually just so that you can get what you need.

If certain companies ignore your software it may be your loss in the end, especially if you want to force some company like NVidia to make all their research public just to defend your ideal. The most likely answer you might get is 'F*ck you!'.

Probably not. NVIDIA drivers will likely just perform a little worse until they either find a workaround or (and I agree this is highly unlikely) they open source their drivers. Probably a workaround is forthcoming, maybe in the form of a NVIDIA-sourced shim that is GPL (so it can link w/ the kernel) but also has an exception for the NVIDIA driver.

I also want to explicitly say that open source advocates are constantly looking at the consequences, but the consequences they see are a nightmarish landscape where Microsoft and Netscape are fighting each other in the browser marketplace using features like the MARQUEE and BLINK tag, or monopolistic, proprietary tie-ins with their dominant desktop OS. When OSS browsers came into being, they effectively made the web a serious platform for development; before that it was just another delivery mechanism for big media, controlled by the big dev companies.

The NVIDIA problem is caused by NVIDIA, not the GPL. People make the same argument about XCode not being able to incorporate GCC into its codebase, "the evil GPL prevents us from using the most popular compiler ever". No, you just can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't benefit from the openness that the GPL enforces and not provide those benefits yourself, that's manifestly unfair.

This is the reason why EE and ZDoom share code so freely, because we understand the benefits of openness and cooperation, and it only works if the benefit is mutual. No one benefits if (if this were even possible) EE and ZDoom close their code bases.

Blzut3 said:

The point is that working in an idealist world you neglect what your consumers actually want. The DMA-buf stuff is an example of "we want optimus support so we can get good battery life," and someone going "be open source then." It's "asinine" to think that that gets us anywhere.

This isn't as clear-cut as you might think. Licenses are also features, or in some cases, hindrances. For example, the IDL wanted to broadcast its games on some ad-supported websites, which is against the BUILD license. If ZDaemon (and of course ZDoom) didn't have the non-commercial-use only restriction, that wouldn't have been a problem.

===

I also think it helps to try and think through one's philosophy to its logical conclusion to see where it leads. If we do this for open source advocacy, everything's fine, everyone can use everyone's code, no community is stuck with tyrannical leaders with an iron grip on the project, etc. If we do this for closed source advocacy, we see that we get competing, buggy implementations whose #1 feature is to compete. Look at Microsoft's deliberately busted version of Java in the 90s.

I mean it sounds like ZDoom devs actually agree with the main point, that code access and reuse is critically important because they lead to feature development, which is what users want. But BSD and non-commercial licenses are just not the way to achieve this, all they provide is a fractured application landscape.

11-18-12 18:26 #

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DaniJ
Senior Member

Posts: 1958
Registered: 08-03

Corporate entities need to protect their IP for the purpose of competitive advantage. They can't do that if they have to lay it bare by publishing the source for every bit of software they create under a license like GPL.

While I advocate open source I cannot understand why anyone thinks that forcing this ideal is even right (let alone desirable). Take away the competitive advantage and the inherent opportunity for commercial gain and EVERYONE suffers because nobody wants to invest in it (thus no advancement).

Its great that there are clever people out there willing to publish the programs they write in the public domain but this is certainly not the norm.

11-18-12 18:54 #

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Ladna
Junior Member

Posts: 233
Registered: 04-10

Yeah that can be an issue. Why would companies invest tons of money into software only to give it away?

The thing is, I don't think we strictly need companies for software development. Browsers are a great example where FOSS has won the day, Chrome and Firefox hold a pretty dominant position in the market. Operating Systems are another, Android (based on Linux) and Linux are wildly popular on phones and servers. Actually, companies donated programmers to these projects in order to improve their quality, so there are incentives for companies to essentially give developer time away.

But I'm not entirely sure of the whole thing. There are lots of counter examples, like, what's the best OSS CAD program? What's the best OSS image editor? What's the best OSS DAW program? We've got databases, we've got media players, we've got window managers. But as far as the work that professionals do every day, OSS has a ways to go.

That said, I'm not sure this is a failing of OSS. You could argue that - for example - because Adobe has Photoshop, there's no incentive for the community to support developers in building a comparable image editor (and yeah I know GIMP but people universally seem to think Photoshop beats its ass; I use GIMP and have never used Photoshop so IDK).

Besides all that, I think the "closed source for a few years, then GPL" model that ID employs works really well actually. Despite being practically all open source, Doom BFG Edition sold pretty well AFAIK. I know this is largely due to the fact that the content isn't free, but my point is that "giving away your software" doesn't mean profit death, in fact there are plenty of examples to the contrary.

11-18-12 19:10 #

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AlexMax
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DaniJ said:
While I advocate open source I cannot understand why anyone thinks that forcing this ideal is even right (let alone desirable). Take away the competitive advantage and the inherent opportunity for commercial gain and EVERYONE suffers because nobody wants to invest in it (thus no advancement).

I'm not going to go as far as Ladna, in that I agree with this statement to a point.

But let's not forget what this debate is ultimately about. It's not about cutting-edge graphics drivers, it's about an almost 20 year old computer game.

11-18-12 19:11 #

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DaniJ
Senior Member

Posts: 1958
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Originally it may have been but the discussion has escalated to fundamental idealism. Its no longer about DOOM source ports per-say.

11-18-12 19:26 #

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Graf Zahl
Why don't I have a custom title by now?!

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DaniJ said:

While I advocate open source I cannot understand why anyone thinks that forcing this ideal is even right (let alone desirable). Take away the competitive advantage and the inherent opportunity for commercial gain and EVERYONE suffers because nobody wants to invest in it (thus no advancement).

This.

For me the GPL has one major design flaw. Its sole purpose is to make sure that any code it ever touches must become GPL itself. It's not an idealist but an extremist position. Much code in the wild can't comply with that.

So, had this been designed by reasonable people instead of zealots some provisions would have been added to ensure that the code doesn't effectively become poison. But it's clearly obvious that this is precisely what the FSF wants.

The sweet spot would have been somewhere between the LGPL and the GPL, most importantly taking out the poison clause from the GPL.

11-18-12 19:27 #

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Ladna
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Posts: 233
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It's absolutely not a provision supported only by "extremists" or "zealots", and I really don't get where that language is coming from. It's actually a defensive clause meant to protect GPL projects. Without it, non-free codebases could benefit from GPL code, while GPL projects have to not only develop the free features, but also spend dev time reimplementing the nonfree features of competing software if they want to stay relevant.

This is precisely the argument ZDoom developers are using against GPL code, by the way: "We can't be GPL because then we couldn't use a lot of non-GPL compatible code and we would then have to expend valuable development time reimplementing those features". I don't understand why it's OK for GPL developers to labor under those circumstances, but not ZDoom developers.

The overall point I'm making is that using nonfree software to advance one's own project is myopic. It causes problems in the community and it places an undue burden on competing or similar projects.

11-18-12 22:46 #

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DaniJ
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Posts: 1958
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Eeeek, now theres a thorny post to follow... ...I feel you've pretty much answered your own "question" vis-�-vis ZDoom. One is reminded of an English proverb involving cake.

11-18-12 23:18 #

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Ladna
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Ladna said:

The NVIDIA problem is caused by NVIDIA, not the GPL. People make the same argument about XCode not being able to incorporate GCC into its codebase, "the evil GPL prevents us from using the most popular compiler ever". No, you just can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't benefit from the openness that the GPL enforces and not provide those benefits yourself, that's manifestly unfair.

I have beaten you to it DaniJ :).

My point has always been that it would be better if devs could freely use any code they wanted to. That's not the universe we live in though, and if we're comparing approaches, the GPL approach has the best chance of getting us there, and more importantly, shortcuts only make it harder to achieve that goal.

11-18-12 23:32 #

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DaniJ
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Dang, that'll teach me (TL;DR).

11-18-12 23:37 #

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printz
CRAZY DUMB ZEALOT

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Ladna said:

My point has always been that it would be better if devs could freely use any code they wanted to. That's not the universe we live in though, and if we're comparing approaches, the GPL approach has the best chance of getting us there, and more importantly, shortcuts only make it harder to achieve that goal.

Just accept that there are people who work more if they are financially motivated, and for their works to resist and not get stolen and made free, software patents get issued.

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Last edited by printz on 11-18-12 at 23:49

11-18-12 23:40 #

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Ladna
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I don't really want to get into an economics discussion involving compensation for work. Sure, closed source is gonna be with us for the foreseeable future, and selling closed source software for money isn't going away any time soon. All I'm saying is that the GPL is NOT anti-freedom. Quite the opposite, it's the most free license there is.

11-18-12 23:48 #

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Graf Zahl
Why don't I have a custom title by now?!

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Ladna said:
it's the most free license there is.

It most definitely is NOT!

A truly 'free' license would not contain asinine restrictions expanding its hold over any code it touches, even if that code is not explicitly licensed under the GPL.

A truly 'free' license, for example is the BSD license. It really allowd to *freely* use code licensed under it. The GPL does not.

11-19-12 00:02 #

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DaniJ
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I think your definition of free could stand some refinement. One should consider the GPL's concept of freedom similarly to:

Human Rights - Article 4 said:

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

When I publish code under a GPL license I do so empowered by the understanding that it will forever be "free" and that no one can subvert my wishes for their own ends.

Clearly your definition of free is closer to a literal interpretation of absolute freedom, which is the point Ladna's argument raises.

11-19-12 00:13 #

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Ladna
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Like I said before, that's a myopic view of freedom. You're absolutely right, BSD is "less restrictive" than the GPL, and of course the "least restrictive" license is placing your code into the public domain.

The problem with that is it cedes too much power to other interests. A good example is ZDoom and ZDaemon. ZDoom's licensing allowed ZDaemon to use the efforts of well-intentioned programmers, not release any updates for a year, and then release a wildly advanced, closed source update. That left the community with a tough choice: either take a hit in features and rebuild from the old open source version, or take a hit in freedom and embrace the new, advanced, closed source ZDaemon.

Whose freedom is more important, developers or users and the community? There's no easy answer to this question, but what is certain is that licenses that allow closing the source are demonstrably worse for the community than those that don't.

===

Freedom can be paradoxical. By regulating industries (abridging the freedom of those industries), investors feel more confident investing in business, and that causes more economic growth than not regulating industry at all. By outlawing things like rape, theft and murder, people can spend fewer resources on their own security and more resources on contributing to society; indeed by abridging people's freedom to commit violent crimes, we've enhanced their ability to pursue their dreams.

11-19-12 00:29 #

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hex11
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Posts: 1982
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Calling GPL free is a real mindfuck, a form of brainwashing. You have to invoke all kinds of exagerated scenarios to make that case. And as time goes on, more and more restrictions get piled on to the license. It's not even remotely understandable by a layman. It's too damn complicated!

In contrast, over the years the BSD has lost several clauses. It's now almost equivalent to PD (just have to give credit where it's due). It fits easily on a single 80x24 text terminal. Anybody can read and understand it. But more importantly, it's an honest license. It doesn't hijack the word "free" while enforcing a whole shitload of viral clauses that will ultimately make you and your project its eternal slave.

That doesn't mean nobody should use GPL. I think the choice of license should be based on the circumstances, and different people/projects have different needs. But damn, it really needs a better adjective than "free", because that's just misleading. Maybe call it "restrictive open-source software" or something like that.

11-19-12 01:36 #

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AlexMax
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hex11 said:
Calling GPL free is a real mindfuck, a form of brainwashing.

There are two separate forms of freedom that the BSD and GPL licenses give, and you can twist their meaning around to mean "not free" approaching from either angle.

The BSD license ensures that the code itself is free from restrictions and can be used for any purpose, including closing the source. Obviously, closed-source forks of that codebase take the freedom to inspect the code.

The GPL license ensures that the codebase itself is free (as in liberty) and can never be closed source unless you never distribute it. Obviously, you can never close the source, so that is one taken freedom of the developer.

So no, the GPL is not brainwashing or "mindfucking", it's simply using the word "free" in a different context. Unfortunately, "free software" has many definitions, including closed-source freeware, so trying to proclaim loudly from your pulpit that this or that definition is the one true definition is wasted effort and borderline silly.

And what exactly is the point of this useless tangent? After all, the Doom source is not dual licensed under BSD or GPL, it is dual-licensed under the Doom Source License and GPL. There will never be a source port released fully under the terms of the BSD license, the only thing you can do is combine your BSD-licensed code with the Doom Source License....which you can just as easily do under the GPL.

Honestly, I find the conversation about potential ways of supporting music and sound effects using something other than FModEx to be much preferable to this tired debate between Richard Stallman and Theo de Raadt that might go on for 11 more pages without being resolved or changing anybody's mind. Can we get back to that?

Last edited by AlexMax on 11-19-12 at 04:35

11-19-12 04:23 #

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Ladna
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What AlexMax said. Plus, while as a programmer I can appreciate the fact that the license is parsimonious and fits in a terminal, those aren't really qualities I look for in a license. In the same way I don't care whether or not dynamite is salty, I don't care whether or not a license is short.

I want a license to be legally sound, and I want it to protect my rights and the rights of my community. The GPL does this. The BSD license does this in a different way, which gives more rights to other developers who might want to use your project, and fewer rights to your users and community.

===

Also, isn't the solution PortAudio + PortMidi? I don't know what all this hand-wringing over OpenAL is, does ZDoom have crazy spatial sound needs?

Last edited by Ladna on 11-19-12 at 04:42

11-19-12 04:36 #

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DaniJ
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AlexMax said:

Unfortunately, "free software" has many definitions, including closed-source freeware, so trying to proclaim loudly from your pulpit that this or that definition is the one true definition is wasted effort and borderline silly.

I don't believe anybody here was doing that. My interpretation of the discussion thus far is that each person involved has tried to crystallize their view and position for the benefit of clarifying points that were raised in the discussion about FModEx.

And what exactly is the point of this useless tangent?

Its not useless. Futile and ultimately pointless given the people involved perhaps but its never useless to debate this topic. Also you can't really call this a tangent as the license situation is the whole reason for the discussion about FMod.

Honestly, I find the conversation about potential ways of supporting music and sound effects using something other than FModEx to be much preferable to this tired debate between Richard Stallman and Theo de Raadt that might go on for 11 more pages without being resolved or changing anybody's mind. Can we get back to that?

Well, whats the point? Unless I'm missing something we already concluded that several pages ago. Also this does kinda sound like "I don't want to think about the actual issues at play - I just want my awesome free audio damnit!".

11-19-12 09:07 #

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Blzut3
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Regarding the licenses, I stopped supporting the GPL outright when GPLv3 came out. It's a pointless restriction to stop "tivoization." I understand the point of the restriction, but I don't agree with it. At some point you have to draw the line where your property ends, and it is increasingly apparent that the GPL only wants the extreme everything is GPL viewpoint. Apparently being able to reprogram the hardware is included in that.

This is why I don't believe in anything more restrictive than the LGPL 2.1 (and to be honest I can't even be sure of that since I can't be bothered to read through it in detail). I believe that there are more legitimate uses for mixing non-free/free code than illegitimate reasons. The reason I use the BSD mostly is because honestly I doubt I'm going to have the resources to enforce the license for cases I disagree with anyways.

Ladna said:
Also, isn't the solution PortAudio + PortMidi? I don't know what all this hand-wringing over OpenAL is, does ZDoom have crazy spatial sound needs?

From a quick look at the API and FAQ, all it provides is access to the sound hardware. Fmod provides spatial audio (multichannel mixing), reverb, and everything else that is required from game audio. Furthermore PortAudio would still require all the codecs be implemented through ZDoom (or though another dependency) which was the whole complaint about the OpenAL branch not being friendly to work with on Windows. Not that it's a real issue, but given that the person who worked on the branch uses Linux it's kind of stuck there.

11-19-12 14:17 #

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Lyfe
Green Marine

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I'm here to throw fuel on the fire.

DaniJ said:Well, whats the point? Unless I'm missing something we already concluded that several pages ago. Also this does kinda sound like "I don't want to think about the actual issues at play - I just want my awesome free audio damnit!".

The point was lost eons before in the thread, when the GPL bigots found a place where they can try to grandstand the theoretical benefits of a license which has long outlasted its usefulness. I'm jumping in at a bad time, because it sounds like the thread might be making its way back to the original topic.

@AlexMax: to try and simplify the reason nvidia's drivers never took off on FreeBSD to a license issue is to ignore a lot of other factors, including adoption of the OS on the workstation (which has been very low, and even with the release of PC-BSD, still remains relatively low.)

@The GPL extremists:
It's a good word, really. You have no middle-ground for licensing. You accept there is one, but believe there shouldn't be one. I'd say that qualifies for the term. I'm an anti-GPL extremist, myself. I accept that the GPL exists; I believe it has achieved it's purpose; and I believe that it should go die in a corner now.
I love the concept of the BSD-license, and even admire PHP's license quirk which prevents it from being utilized by GPL projects. If nothing else, just because the GPL's terms prevent GPL projects from being utilized in non-GPL projects. Nothing like a 1-way street to inspire sharing.

Side note: GPL-code is not an option for me. I believe that the code belongs to the people who write it, not the license (or any future version of the license) it was distributed under. The GPL controls your code, the FSF controls the GPL.

(edit: Bad attribution of comment. Ladna politely corrected me. Sorry, thread was too long.)

Last edited by Lyfe on 11-19-12 at 17:40

11-19-12 14:55 #

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Ladna
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Registered: 04-10

Lyfe said:

@Ladna: to try and simplify the reason nvidia's drivers never took off on FreeBSD to a license issue is to ignore a lot of other factors, including adoption of the OS on the workstation (which has been very low, and even with the release of PC-BSD, still remains relatively low.)

I will reply in full to Blzut3 and you Lyfe later (I have like 2 minutes just now), but I wanted to say that wasn't me that said that. I think it was AlexMax.

11-19-12 17:22 #

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Lyfe
Green Marine

Posts: 48
Registered: 11-01

Ladna said:
I will reply in full to Blzut3 and you Lyfe later (I have like 2 minutes just now), but I wanted to say that wasn't me that said that. I think it was AlexMax.

Sorry about that. I had it in my head I was reading your comment at the time. You are correct that it was AlexMax who said it. I should've realized that, since he's more likely to know what has/hasn't been in the FreeBSD ports lib for a while.

I have a request though. Please do limit your reply to actual concrete comments, or obvious opinions. Your comparisons to other concepts in society are strained & wordy and very hard to read without getting bored.

11-19-12 17:51 #

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myk

Posts: 14801
Registered: 04-02

Ladna said:
Why would companies invest tons of money into software only to give it away?

I think that eventually, the solution will be a system where you either reveal your sources or pay taxes that are channeled to free software enterprises, with higher taxes on more critical or essential software, and more so if it becomes widespread in use or economically hegemonic.

11-19-12 18:55 #

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fraggle
Super Moderator

Posts: 6565
Registered: 07-00

I think Linus Torvalds has the right idea with the GPL. You don't have to agree with everything the FSF says in order to use it (and I certainly don't; I think they're dead wrong on a lot of things). Linus describes it as "tit for tat" and "a fundamentally fair license", which is pretty much how I see it.

If I'm hacking on stuff and releasing it on the Internet for free, I don't see it as unreasonable to expect others to behave by the same code of conduct when they make use my work. Call that "viral", "poison", "brainwashing" or "extremism" if you want. I call it fair.

11-19-12 19:26 #

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Quasar
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Likewise, I consider a license where you put your stuff out there for people to learn from and use, but then tack on a bunch of bullshit conditions to it like non-commercial use, and hack it all up together in a legally untested license that probably won't stand up in court to be stupid, in the same way I consider the GPL to be a firm and fair license.

I have also never discouraged anyone from using the BSD. If you don't care if people take your stuff and close-source it, fine, go right ahead. At least it's a free and open-source license.

BUILD license doesn't qualify as free. DOOMLIC and Activision EULA are not even open source licenses, and I want everybody to stop claiming you're allowed to distribute code under them - both are plain as day in simple English "you may not distribute the Code/Source/Program". You don't need to be a lawyer to understand that and any way you want to twist it would be thrown out of court with a laugh if it really came to a legal test.

This started out as a discussion about abuse of this license soup to stop the rest of us from implementing features that are in ZDoom, simply because it has proven easier for ZDoom to frankenstein itself with software that ought not to even be available since looking at it taints anyone who sees it with materials that they cannot use in their personal and professional lives, instead of doing the work to come to a rigorous understanding of said features and then implement them from scratch.

I don't know how it turned into a GPL vs BSD argument in the first place because I certainly never suggested ZDoom should even have that as a goal. I just suggested they - and everyone else - should stop using BUILD code.

Last edited by Quasar on 11-19-12 at 19:48

11-19-12 19:39 #

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